L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Amusements
of the North American Indians

[This
text was originally published in 1907 by the Bureau of American Ethnology
as part of its Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico.
It was later reproduced, in 1913, by the Geographic Board of Canada.
The work done by the American Bureau was monumental, well informed and
incorporated the most advanced scholarship available at the time. In
many respects, the information is still useful today, although prudence
should be exercised and the reader should consult some of the contemporary
texts on the history and the anthropology of the North American Indians
suggested in the bibliographic introduction to this section. The articles
were not completely devoid of the paternalism and the prejudices prevalent
at the time. While some of the terminology used would not pass the test
of our "politically correct" era, most terms have been left unchanged
by the editor. If a change in the original text has been effected it
will be found between brackets [.] The original work contained long
bibliographies that have not been reproduced for this web edition. For
the full citation, see the end of the text.]

When
not bound down by stern necessity, the Indian at home was occupied much
of the time with dancing, feasting, gaming, and story-telling. Though
most of the dances were religious or otherwise ceremonial in character,
there were some which had no other purpose than that of social pleasure.
They might take place in the day or the night, be general or confined
to particular societies, and usually were accompanied with the drum
or other musical instrument to accentuate the song. The rattle was perhaps
invariably used only in ceremonial dances. Many dances were of pantomimic
or dramatic character, and the [Inuit] had regular pantomime plays,
though evidently due to Indian influence. The giving of presents was
often a feature of the dance, as was betting of all athletic contests
and ordinary games. The amusements of the [Inuit] and extreme northern
tribes were chiefly athletic, such as racing, wrestling, throwing of
heavy stones, and tossing in a blanket. From Hudson Bay to the Gulf
of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the border of the plains, the great
athletic game was the ball play, now adopted among civilized games under
the name of la crosse . In the N. it was played with one racket, and
in the S. with two. Athletes were regularly trained for this game, and
competitions were frequently inter-tribal. The wheel-and-stick game
in one form or another was well-nigh universal. AS played in the E.
one gamester rolled forward a stone disc, or wheel, while his opponent
slid after it a stick curved at one end in such a way that the wheel,
when it fell to the ground, rested within the crook of the stick. On
the plains and in the S. W. a wooden wheel, frequently netted, took
the place of the stone disk. Like most Indian institutions, the game
often had a symbolic significance in connection with a sun myth. A sacred
variant of the game was played by the priests for divinatory purposes,
or even as a sort of votive ceremony to procure the recovery of a patient.
Target practice with arrows, knives, or hatchets, thrown from the hand,
as well as with the bow or rifle, was also universal among the warriors
and boys of the various tribes. The gaming arrows were of special design
and ornamentation, and the game itself had often a symbolic purpose.
Horse races, frequently inter-tribal, were prominent amusements, especially
on the plains, during the warm season, and foot races, often elaborately
ceremonial in character, were common among the sedentary agricultural
tribes, particularly the Pueblos and the Wichita.

Games
resembling dice and bunt-the-button were found everywhere and were played
by both sexes alike, particularly in the tipi or the wigwam during the
long winter nights. The dice, or their equivalents, were of stone, bone,
fruit seeds, shell, wood, or reed, variously shaped and marked. They
were thrown from the hand or from a small basket or wooden bowl. One
form, the awl game, confined to the women, was played around a blanket,
which had various tally marks along the border for marking the progress
of the game. The bunt-the-button games were usually accompanied with
songs and rhythmic movements of the hands and body, intended to confuse
the parties whose task was to guess the location of the button. Investigations
by Culin show a close correspondence between these Indian games and
those of China, Japan Korea, and northern Asia.

Special
women's games were shinny, football, and the deer-foot game, besides
the awl game already noted. In football the main object was to keep
the ball in the air as long as possible by kicking it upward. The deer-foot
game was played, sometimes also by men with a number of perforated bones
from a deer's foot strung upon a beaded cord, having a needle at one
end. The purpose was to toss the bones in such a way as to catch a particular
one upon the end of the needle.

Among
the children there were target shooting, stilts, slings, and tops for
the boys, and buckskin dolls and playing-house for the girls, with "wolf"
or "catcher," and various forfeit plays, including a breath-holding
test. Cats'­cradles, or string figures, as well as shuttlecocks
and buzzes, were common. As among [other] nations, the children found
the greatest delight in imitating the occupations of the elders. Numerous
references to amusements among the various tribes maybe found through­out
the annual reports of the Bureau of Amer­ican Ethnology. Consult
especially games of the American Indians, by Stewart Culin, 24th Rep.
B. A. E., 1905.